Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
At best, the pic serves as a showy grab-bag of thriller varieties for which the helmer demonstrates equal aptitude; at worst, it points to a narrative attention span that hasn't yet evolved from his award-winning short film work.

Name : Barbara VanDenburgh / Alias : Arizona Republic
While its audacity is laudable, the film ultimately has all the thrill of watching someone else play a first-person-shooter video game.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
Director Ilya Naishuller has said that he originally thought a 90-minute feature using the same technique was a bad idea, based on little more than a gimmick. It turns out he was right, but that won't matter to certain audiences.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
You could go see "Hardcore Henry" - or you could gulp down a pint of vodka, load in "Grand Theft Auto," then strap the TV to your face and throw yourself down the stairs.

Name : Michael Ordona / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
If one can accept the story's video-game logic and cope with the kinetosis, "Hardcore" is often exhilaratingly extreme.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
Hardcore Henry never aspires to rise above its one gimmick.

Name : Bruce Diones / Alias : New Yorker
This first-person-shooter extravaganza has little purpose besides showing what happens when a GoPro is strapped to a series of stuntmen as they run through their repertoire of extraordinary action moves.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
For the first time ever, a movie has actually done it. "Hardcore Henry" has precisely replicated the experience of watching someone else play a video game.

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
The relentless action flick Hardcore Henry is totally nuts and a lot of fun for freaks.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
For about 90 seconds, the novel first-person-shooter point of view hits our bodies with an unexpected flood of adrenaline, in a heart-pounding rush. Trouble is, the chemical high doesn't last.

Name : Dennis Harvey / Alias : Variety
Only the tiniest, most basic elements of character, backstory and even narrative are offered on the run in a movie whose 95% frantic-action composition has no need or breathing space for more.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
If action movies are meant to be stunning, Hardcore Henry can proudly take its place among the giants. Even better, it lets you stand with them.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
Hardcore Henry doesn't just get under your skin, it gets behind your eyeballs and uses your head as its own cockpit. For hardcore thrills, Henry is your guy.

Name : Dave White / Alias : TheWrap
Their collective trip to hell is death tourism for the viewer; its sole, genuine feeling the one of relief that comes when it's over.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
When the action is at its sharpest, such as with Henry's mid-chase leap from a detonating truck onto the back of a motorcycle, it's spectacular. Other times, it can be as wearying as generically hyper-edited Hollywood fare.

Name : Robert Abele / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Too stuck in the swamp of empty machismo to be anything more than the feature equivalent of a soar-and-crash overdose.

Name : Matthew Lickona / Alias : San Diego Reader
The story exists mainly to provide reason and shape for the frenzy of carnage: constant, numbing, and in the film's view at least, occasionally funny.

Name : Stephen Dalton / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Billed as the first-ever action movie filmed entirely from the hero's first-person viewpoint, Hardcore blasts along like a supercharged computer-game shoot-em-up, bursting with sick humor and splatterpunk violence.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
Is it much of a movie? Not really. It's more of an experience - a passive sort of virtual reality - that uses a bare-bones narrative as a vehicle for a big-time body count.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A gonzo Russian action-flick shot entirely in first-person perspective. About as coherent as it sounds, but highly inventive and bloody great fun.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : ChristyLemire.com
It is pummeling. It is punishing. It is nauseating and headache-inducing.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
It's all about the ride, the relentless wallop and whoosh. But, hey, sometimes that's all a cine-junkie needs for a fix.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
A dim beacon in the darkening night of action features, signaling a path to plot-free oblivion.

Name : Glenn Kenny / Alias : New York Times
Its dour eccentricity gives Hardcore Henry a potency above and beyond that of standard-issue show-off action fare. That doesn't mean it's not still obnoxious, though.

Name : Stephen Garrett / Alias : New York Observer
[Naishuller's] debut feature is a landmark of sorts, and a potent omen in this year of mass-marketed virtual reality.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
First-person POV quickly gets old as the bodies stack and the story loses steam.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
I'm sure a lot of people will call Hardcore Henry "innovative" and "groundbreaking." And maybe it is. But it also feels more like a cool gimmick than a movie-and that gimmick gets old pretty fast.

Name : Will Leitch / Alias : The New Republic
A great movie fools you into thinking it's really happening. By trying to make us a part of the film itself, Hardcore Henry just keeps reminding us it's not.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : MTV
Hardcore Henry is nauseating, twice over.